Is the Golden Knights' problem Jack Eichel?

[Chainshot]

Agreed. He bears some of the blame for that. But he certainly wasn't put in a position to succeed with the train wreck of coaches and GMs he dealt with in his first five years.

The next time I hear about Jack coming in to work on something for his game other than moving plates in the weight room will be the first.

 

[valet]

Agreed. He bears some of the blame for that. But he certainly wasn't put in a position to succeed with the train wreck of coaches and GMs he dealt with in his first six years. It still boggles my mind that we managed to follow up Tim Murray with an even worse GM, and Bylsma with two increasingly worse head coaches.

mcdavid has really never been put in a situation where he could succeed. you can say the same about drai. but they have both somehow reached or exceeded their potential. hell, they are the sole reason edmonton hasn’t been an abject tire fire the last 5 or so years

at a certain point the buck has to stop with the player. some guys just want to constantly get better. jack doesn’t have that gene in him, i don’t think. it’s not a judgement of his character as a human being, it’s just maybe he’s not as competitive at the core as some other guys. he made his money, got his 15 minutes of fame. maybe that is just enough for him and he doesn’t desire greatness deep down

 

[Montag DP]

mcdavid has really never been put in a situation where he could succeed. you can say the same about drai. but they have both somehow reached or exceeded their potential.

at a certain point the buck has to stop with the player. some guys just want to constantly get better. jack doesn’t have that gene in him, i don’t think. it’s not a judgement of his character as a human being, it’s just maybe he’s not as competitive at the core as some other guys

You're getting me wrong here, I think. I'm not making excuses for him, I'm just saying that the situation he was placed into was about as bad as they get. I don't think any Sabres fan would seriously claim that 2015-2021 (up until Granato took over) was anything other than an absolute ****show. Could some players have still reached their potential in that situation? Sure, but not many. It even caused ROR to "lose his love for the game." Jack was part of the problem with those teams for sure, but he was also the only one generating anything many nights.

Which players did reach their potential with Buffalo during those years? None that I can think of.

 

[Frank Drebin]

There were threads up to the first 1-2 months of his rookie season comparing him to mcdavid, some posters even suggesting he was the superior player, in the vein of Crosby vs ovechkin.

 

[Beerz]

I don't miss him.

 

[YearsintheWilderness]

 

[bert]

I think Jack would thrive on a Vet team where he is also not the guy.

Isn't that where he is right now?...

 

[BFLO]

Eichel is one of those players that's very good, if not great, but just not in the upper echelon.

He's more of a Taylor Hall to me.

He was touted in the months or year before the 2015 draft as being a closer second to McDavid than you would think, and he's not even the second or third best player in that draft. Not even sure if he's top-5, but I'd really have to go through the names in that draft to say for sure.

Marner and Ratanen definitely go ahead of him.

I think the scouts correctly identified how skilled and talented he is. But nobody predicted how fragile his body is.

People forget he finished top 10 in league scoring the season before his body fully gave out.

He's similar to Hall in that respect. Top 10 league talent who's career was derailed by injuries and ends up a hollowed out husk of what they were earlier on.

 

[Beerz]

I think the scouts correctly identified how skilled and talented he is. But nobody predicted how fragile his body is.

People forget he finished top 10 in league scoring the season before his body fully gave out.

He's similar to Hall in that respect. Top 10 league talent who's career was derailed by injuries and ends up a hollowed out husk of what they were earlier on.

Fragile mind as well.

 

[Chainshot]

I think the scouts correctly identified how skilled and talented he is. But nobody predicted how fragile his body is.

People forget he finished top 10 in league scoring the season before his body fully gave out.

He's similar to Hall in that respect. Top 10 league talent who's career was derailed by injuries and ends up a hollowed out husk of what they were earlier on.

But why is his body giving out at such a young age? Perhaps the place to look is in his preparation, and that's again, not just moving plates in the weight room.

 

[DisgruntledHawkFan]

Eichel is less than the sum of his parts. I totally get why Buffalo fans can't stand him.

 

[wetcoast]

mcdavid has really never been put in a situation where he could succeed. you can say the same about drai. but they have both somehow reached or exceeded their potential. hell, they are the sole reason edmonton hasn’t been an abject tire fire the last 5 or so years

at a certain point the buck has to stop with the player. some guys just want to constantly get better. jack doesn’t have that gene in him, i don’t think. it’s not a judgement of his character as a human being, it’s just maybe he’s not as competitive at the core as some other guys. he made his money, got his 15 minutes of fame. maybe that is just enough for him and he doesn’t desire greatness deep down

Sure on the face of it this looks like a reasonable explanation but maybe each injury alters the future slightly even if he is billed at 100%?

That being said I thought Eichel would become a better pro than he has been but why that hasn't happened might be the above or it might be a combination of a lot of other factors we simply don't know about and never will.

 

[Bleedred]

I don't think Eichel is THE problem on the whole, but the fact that he has 2 points in the last 10 games is a big problem right now.

And Mark Stone is really becoming an injury case.

I didn't realize how old some of those guys from their inaugural season now are. Marchessault, Smith, Karlsson (just barely) are all over 30 years old now. Martinez and Kessel are both 35 and don't have much left.

I thought they could come of the West, but the roster looks pretty average to me and possibly below average without Stone. No Stone and 2 points in 10 games for Eichel and it gets really below average.

Not to mention they have mediocre goalies. Thompson is fine relative to the league average save percentage, but is a -2.41 GSAx. Hill is as mediocre as he is pretty much every year and every team he's been on.

 

[valet]

You're getting me wrong here, I think. I'm not making excuses for him, I'm just saying that the situation he was placed into was about as bad as they get. I don't think any Sabres fan would seriously claim that 2015-2021 (up until Granato took over) was anything other than an absolute ****show. Could some players have still reached their potential in that situation? Sure, but not many. It even caused ROR to "lose his love for the game." Jack was part of the problem with those teams for sure, but he was also the only one generating anything many nights.

Which players did reach their potential with Buffalo during those years? None that I can think of.

yeah, it is really hard to separate the two (player vs system). i didn’t mean to come across like i was in full attack mode there, i just wanted to highlight the player factor in jack’s situation

 

[BurnabyJoe7]

I think he just needs to get traded a few more times to contenders so that he can find a team he really meshes with. Since he already used his injury as a segue to Vegas, he will have to be creative with his next exit.

Based on interviews the guy just sucks as a person. It would be great to see him have zero team success for the rest of his career.

 

[Artorius Horus T]

its his curse, he brings it with him where ever he goes it seems.

Golden Knights are 2 points ahead of the Oilers, WC #1 team, Oilers 1 game in hand
Oilers are 7-1-2 in their last 10 games, Golden Knights have just 2 wins
in their last 10 games.

Golden Knights versus The Avs; Avs are WC #2 team and have 3 games in hand,
7-3-0 in their last 10, 5 points behind Golden Knights.

Golden Knights are also 5 points ahead of the Flames, WC contender #1,
Flames 1 game in hand, versus Predators, Predators WC contender #2
have 4 games in hand, 8 point difference, Predators have won 3 in a row.

So, Vegas not that far away falling from 2nd place in their division, to 5th
and out of the play-offs picture..

Oh, right forgot the Kings, anyways..

 

[Sky04]

I like how they're leaning to a win a cup on a guy who's 8 years into the league and hasn't played a single playoff game, I'm sure they can afford a couple seasons for him to adjust to the learning curve though.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Eichel is less than the sum of his parts. I totally get why Buffalo fans can't stand him.

wow this is a great way to describe him

 

[iCanada]

mcdavid has really never been put in a situation where he could succeed. you can say the same about drai. but they have both somehow reached or exceeded their potential. hell, they are the sole reason edmonton hasn’t been an abject tire fire the last 5 or so years

at a certain point the buck has to stop with the player. some guys just want to constantly get better. jack doesn’t have that gene in him, i don’t think. it’s not a judgement of his character as a human being, it’s just maybe he’s not as competitive at the core as some other guys. he made his money, got his 15 minutes of fame. maybe that is just enough for him and he doesn’t desire greatness deep down

The big difference between McDavid and Eichel is that McDavid trains so hard he needs to find multiple coaches and training partners because he can't find a single partner or coach to push as hard as he does all summer long.

McDavid's closest to full time training partner ever was Hyman this summer who skated with McDavid nearly 50% of the summer. I don't think it's a coincidence that Hyman is on pace for over 100 points this season.

 

[Bleedred]

Vegas has to clean house. My god. GM has to go.

Good chance they will after this year, based on nothing but Bill Foley’s comments in 2017.

He said he wants a cup within the first 6 years back in 2017. We are now in year 6.

He had previously said in 2014 that he wanted one within 8 years.

It’s possible he keeps his guys employed as the team has still had a lot of success, unless there’s another playoff miss. I somehow doubt they’ll survive another playoff miss this year. Feels like there’s a 90%-something chance they’re out with another playoff miss this season.

Their division is such a shit show that there’s no excuse for them to not at least make the playoffs this year. I could see them anywhere from getting swept in round one to somehow making it to the SCF. I don’t think they’d win if they got to the SCF, but that depends on what they do at the deadline.

 

[Rob Brown]

Couldn't have added any sort of substance to this thread? Just a straight up link to your article?

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

Couldn't have added any sort of substance to this thread? Just a straight up link to your article?

Couldn't even be bothered to make a title to the thread. I'm sure the article is the same quality as his post but I will never know for sure.

 

[hangman005]

Merged, nothing in the title of the new thread nor the OP told me why it should be a stand alone thread.

 

[TageGod]

I feel like Eichel's body isn't flexible. I saw Jeff Skinner's leg bend badly on a fall and thought he's out for months now, but never got hurt.

 

[Ace]

When the going gets tough…Jack’s not the answer.